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Honey Wagon, Harpers Ferry, Craigs Wheelchair, Whites Ferry, Malcom in the Middle, Storm



Friday, July 23 to Indian Flats (Point of Rocks,MD)

Before I could leave Huckleberry Hill, I had to wait for the honey wagon to do it's job.


The scenery this morning was nice.
    

It's the middle of the morning as I come to the railroad bridge that crosses to Harpers Ferry. I'm in the shade and the temperature is 98; it doesn't feel that bad.
    

To cross the bridge, you need to climb a circular stairway.
         
    
As I'm about to leave the shade of the bridge, a guy named Craig rolls up to sell cold bottled water to the trail riders and other tourists. The water is in the back of his motorized wheelchair (20 mile range). I put a dollar in the purse behind him and retrieve a bottle. Another man just gives him a dollar without taking any water. He tells me to take another bottle for myself, saying "It's paid for", obviously not wanting to take any charity. He's a quadrapalegic with a very positive attitude.

Because I didn't want to carry my recumbent and gear up and down the stairway, I was still quite hungry. About 5 miles down the towpath was Brunswick. To get into town, I needed to cross the railroad tracks. That meant I had to turn left and go up a small rise. I lost momentum from the rise and the roughness of the tracks and took a spill.

It provided me with road rash on my left knee and elbow. If I'd landed on the hot tracks, I might have cauterized my road rash. I was not able to sleep on my left side for several nights.

I proceeded up Maple to Mommer's Diner and had a good meal. "Mommer" is what the grandchildren of the lady who owned the diner, called her.

I stayed at Indian Flats, but don't remember a thing about it.

Saturday, July 24 to Horsepen Branch (Poolesville,MD)

The Monocacy Aqueduct, with seven arches, took 4 years to build, and another 35 years to repair damage done by repeated flooding after temporary supports were installed in the 1970s.

Point-of-Rocks has a small store that also serves warm food. I also got a bag of ice to refill my water bottles.

White's Ferry is the last ferry that is still operational on the Potomac or any of its tributaries. For a dollar, a bicyclist can ride it from Maryland all the way to Virginia. As I waited to get on the ferry, my bicycle thermometer read 110 in the shade. Note to self: I've got to get a new thermometer. The ferry runs along a long cable strung from the Maryland side of the Potomac over to West Virginia. (I could be wrong; it may have been strung from West Virginia to Maryland.) They run with partial loads just so people don't have to wait.

    
There is also a store/restaurant there where I bought lunch. Wanting company, I invited myself to sit with an older gentleman. He introduced himself as Ed White, implying he was related to the man the ferry was named after. Well, he wasn't related to that Mr. White; his last name wasn't even White. Even better, he was Ed Brown, the owner of White's Ferry. Ed Brown's 91st birthday was this past week.

Ed told me a story about a woman who was having trouble with her husband. Her pastor asked her if she had any sweet tea. She did. He told her that any time she thought there might be any trouble to put some of that in her mouth but, instead of swallowing it, just to swish it around.

A month later, she told the pastor that it had worked wonderfully, but didn't know why. He said "You see what happens when you keep your mouth shut?"

Ed wanted me to be sure to see the markings on the outside of the building, showing how high the flood waters had risen. He said they get a 100-year flood about every ten years, and a ten year flood about twice a year, or something like that. Floods in 1972, 1985, and 1996 caused the building to be flooded well into the second floor of the store.

As we were talking, his son Malcom joined us. I remembered his name because he was sitting between Ed and I.

Before I left, I wanted to get a bag of ice, but I really couldn't use the 10-pound bag they had. The clerk knew that Ed and I were getting along. Perhaps that's why he let me take a full bag, fill my 4 bottles, return what was left, and charge me only a dollar. What remained went into a barrel holding "ice" cold pop.

I stayed at Horsepen Branch campground. As it turned out, in Washington, D.C., the high temperature was 101 degrees, breaking the record by 5 degrees. I set up my tent without the rain fly, hoping for a cool breeze overnight.
    
Sunday, July 25 to Swains Lock (Great Falls,MD)

Woke up just after dawn thinking I heard thunder. I didn't have a rain fly on the tent. I realized that it was a jet from D.C. It is a cold 79.9 degrees at 6am. As I was packing, I found this hitchhiker on my seat.
On this day, my next to the last day of riding, the scenery was pleasant and varied.                              
At the Swains Lock campground, I set up my tent and played "steal the bread" with a squirrel.
At the campground, the water was turned off. Someone said I'd find a grocery store by going up the hill, then turn right. It was only about a mile away, so I decided to give it a try. When they said hill, they should have said HILL. I got up a quarter of what I could see using my granny gear and had to quit. As I caught my breath, I heard a noise.

First, I thought it was a huge tree falling, but when it was followed by a cool breeze, my brain corrected itself to think thunder storm. It was, and the next thing I thought of was my flyless tent. I quickly coasted back to the towpath, but had to stop before proceeding. A gust of wind was swirling sand around me and for about 15 seconds I had to close my eyes.

As I opened my eyes and prepared to clip back in, I heard the sound of a large branch cracking, quickly followed by that branch catching on other branches as it fell to the ground.

The branch completely covered the path to my tent. I'd have been under that branch if it weren't for the whirling wind stopping me from riding.
During all this, the rain started and quickly got heavy. I pushed my bike to a hill next to the path where I laid it down. Although I made it to my tent as quickly as I could, the inside was soaked.
I put on the fly and jumped inside to wait out the storm. I felt a stream of water flow under the tent. It felt as if I were on a waterbed. The rain from higher levels seemed to converge on my tent site.
Then the storm stopped and the sun came out. I had to move my tent. I emptied it and tried to dry everything out. Then I set it up in another area.
I thought I had done a fairly good job until I climbed in after dark. It was on uneven and slanted ground. As a result, I didn't sleep well that night. That was my third night of little sleep as the previous two days had record high temperatures in nearby Washington.

The picture on the left shows the actual damage. The one on the right is a picture I found on the internet on which I have circled the part of the tree that tried to kill me.     

Monday, July 26 to Alice's (Woodbridge,VA)

A crew had the trail cleaned off before 8am.

On the way to breakfast I saw a guy with his helmet on backwards. Breakfast had to wait awhile. Great Falls Snack Bar and Museum is closed; power is off in the area due to last night's storm.

Beyond that, the experience included puddles from yesterday's storm, rock walls, mysterious turns, a foot trail washout, and fallen trees.
                             
There was a detour due to some low hanging wires, but the detour looked worse than the path, so I took the advise of Ed Noonan and ignored the detour sign, carefully.
    
I can't really tell you how I got across the canal and into Georgetown, but I was able to find my way to the Rock Creek Park Trail, leading to the bridge to Arlington and the exciting traffic circle to the Mt. Vernon multi-use path to … Mt. Vernon.

With 30 miles to go to get to my sister's, I looked at the Mt. Vernon Trail as an easy way to eat up half the distance. It was wide and not in heavy use this Monday afternoon.

I stopped in Alexandria just 6 flat miles later to get lunch at The Perfect Pita. It was in a building so small that there was no seating, inside or out, not even enough room for an ice maker. I sat outside on my recumbent seat, watching planes approach Reagan Airport. There was an interesting cargo bike parked nearby.
    
On the way to a Food Giant store to get a bag of ice, I had to stop and snap a picture of this utility bike locked to a bike loop on a street corner. The Food Giant didn't want customers taking their shopping carts to their cars, and posted this sign.     
Beyond Alexandria, the trail got undulating and twisty.     
After 132 persistent but mild uphill miles, followed by almost 180 flat, unpaved miles, the hills of the Mt. Vernon Trail did me in. I rode beyond Mt. Vernon a few more miles in traffic, then called my sister to pick me up with less than 15 miles to go.

Tuesday, July 27 to Sunday, August 1 at Alice's (Woodbridge,VA)

Alice is my sister. She was 13 when I was born and, before this trip, I could only remember seeing her once, at our father's funeral. In the same month I lost my wife, she lost her husband and one son. About six months later, I was able to find her. In the following six months we conversed by phone and eMail while I planned this trip.

She works 4 days a week until after lunch in a local restaurant, and is known affectionately as "Ms Alice". My plan was to sightsee while she was at work and visit with her when she was not working.

Here, I would like to share with you mostly some of my experiences while I was seeing the sights in Washington, D.C.

I would travel the 30 miles via commuter train in the morning. The cheapest way was to buy 10 one-way tickets at the senior rate, drive to the Woodbridge station and park, then ride for about an hour to Union Station in D.C.

My first time at Union Station, I wanted to know how to get on the return train. The ticket lady there said I would have to go to 'L'. "I have to go to Hell?", I teased her. Apparently, her customers don't joke with her, so she enjoyed the pun, but I did learn which gate to go to.

I walked from the train station to the National Air and Space Museum. The weather was hot and my feet hurt, so it took nearly an hour. Most could probably do it in half the time. I still got there a half hour before they opened at 10am. I would be back on my train before they closed at 5:30pm. By noon, I had only made it down one side of one wing. It would take me another whole day to see the whole building.

I had lunch across the street at a food concession. I had a pizza. They wouldn't fill my water bottle with ice, but after telling one employee about my trip, she gave me a large cup of ice.

I sat with a young man who said he was waiting for his parents. I kidded him while looking over his shoulder, saying "Your parents are coming". He turned to look, then realized he hadn't described them to me. A bit later, when I saw a couple walking toward us that could be his parents, I repeated it. He thought I was kidding this time, but it WAS them.

Later that day, I was talking with the pedicab drivers. They told me there was a train station closer than the one I came in to. They all wanted about $15 for a 3-4 block ride, but after telling one about my trip, he agreed to do it for $5.

The next day, back in the Museum, I discovered I could buy freeze dried ice cream. What's next? Freeze dried water? All you add is ... water?

Almost a century ago, the Wright Brothers had a bicycle shop where two models were available. The top of the line VanCleve was $65 ($1478, adjusted for inflation) and the Saint Clair was $42.50 ($966 now). (And these bike builders didn't use bicycle wheels on their first airplane !)
    
The Hubble Telescope is truely an amazing accomplishment. In an early Hubble photograph of one small area, there were a bunch of blurs. Then, in 2003, they pointed to the same area and opened the shutter, then closed the shutter about 12 weeks later.

Instead of blurs, they got much detail, seeing 10,000 galaxies, some over 13 billion years old. Remember, earth is part of a solar system, and our solar system is just one in the Milky Way galaxy, of which Hubble saw 10,000 in the visual space taken up by 1/2 of our moon. Gotta drop my jaw at that.

Just think how many more galaxies Hubble could see if aimed differently, and how many more if it could see farther away. It makes the possibility of life like us, some where else, seem much more probable.
One day, on the train back to Woodbridge, there were two guys talking about the trains. They were talking about how the trains seemed to be moving a bit faster. One guy said "It's been about two weeks, hasn't it?" The other guy said "No, it's been about three weeks". The first guy says "Well, you might be right, and you might be wrong." The other guy says "Well, I don't pay much attention to whether I'm right or wrong." I assumed they were government workers.

Bill was Alice's husband and he was a painter. He painted this on the wall of a local Italian restaurant. What makes this particularly interesting was that Bill was color blind!

My sister and I had a wonderful week and I am SO looking forward to her trip to Michigan next Spring.

August 2 - Home in a day

I wanted to avoid the cost of a motel on the way home, so I decided to drive straight home to Michigan without stopping. My car objected. It ran out of gas on the Ohio Turnpike.

Be aware, not all emergency service vehicles are allowed on the turnpike to answer service calls. In spite of that, I was back on the road in 75 minutes. But I get ahead of myself.

After putting 5 gallons of gas in the car, it still wouldn't start. My battery had run down from my listening to the radio and having the flashers on. He hooked his jumpers on and told me to turn the key. I did, but heard nothing, and turned off the key. He said it did start, but because of the road noise, I couldn't hear it. A second try was successful.

He said I could get more gas about 5 miles ahead, but to be sure I wouldn't have another dead battery after getting gas, (I'd just put in 100 miles worth of gas), I drove another 75 miles before stopping to get more. In spite of the delay, I still got home an hour before sundown.

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